#the Discourse TM will be so much i can see it already

[waleofgaterdeep]

Because I literally can't keep my mouth shut I gotta comment on the Gale Fatherhood Discourse TM lmao. /(it's not really discourse at all).

This gets long, sorry not sorry 💕💕💕

First I gotta say it loud and clear for all y'all (because I know how tumblr works: its all or nothing for canon discourse)- if you don't jive with parenthood headcanons that's totally valid. If you find it icky, I get you. If you enjoy the headcanons, more power to you to create them and enjoy them. I love to see different perspectives in fandom content. It means the original material is inspiring. What follows is my interpretation of the content that may or may not align with your interpretation. And that's not a reflection on you or I if our interpretations don't align.

Okay with that out of the way--

I have a p different interpretation of the "I'm not father material " line from Gale. In the context of the scene, as most know, Tav is asking Gale to open up their relationship (for Halsin).

(Thanks naughty gaming on YouTube)

Gale is notoriously awkward around the concept of sex (ala his reaction to the foursome in the brothel), fiercely monogamous to the point of obsessive devotion, and known to make jokes in dark situations. I interpret this reaction not as naivete or a moment of honesty, but an intentional attempt to gain some control over the conversation. Gale is trying to defuse the situation because he feels uncomfortable and bad about it!! We already know he has problems with feeling inferior in romantic relationships. Tav walking up and just asking to have sex with another guy, to Gale, would call into question his own position in the relationship. I mean, just look at the very next line:

"I thought what we had meant something to you."

He's angry and afraid that he's going to lose someone he loves. He's not genuinely commenting on his opinion of parenthood, he's just going through it.

This conversation also mirrors his reaction in the conversation in which Tav is romancing someone else and Gale asks them to choose.

So no, in my opinion, I don't think it's really the smoking gun of the canon that some people are making it out to be. It's a very Gale response tho, it all makes sense in the meta of his issues with romance and self-esteem.

I also have some thoughts on his opinion of students (which some ppl have cited towards the Gale is a Bad Father side).

At some point, I can't find a screenshot, Gale mentions he once had apprentices but they really annoyed him. (Which is very funny tbh.) Then, during the Trial of Love, choosing the correct answer of "apple" for the "What food is Gale?" question, gets you this line:

(thank you Ashe on YouTube)

So in his incredibly vulnerable Trial of Love, typified by his own honesty, he admits that he dreams of being a professor and having devoted students.

Does this reflect his opinions on parenthood? Not really imo.

I think this aligns way more with Gale's desire to have someone devote love and attention to him. To be respected and lauded. Gale desperately wants to be acknowledged for his genius, his arcane skills, and to be appreciated for sharing his knowledge (read: sharing his true self, the little nerdy wizard guy Gale Dekarios). It connects back to the concept of ✨Gale of Warerdeep ✨, the fabricated man he wanted to be to impress Mystra, and gain a high level of respect and awe. Not so much a commentary on how he feels about students as people or children. The students are just the vessel through which he can gain respect.

But the tl;dr of it all is that I don't think there is a canon moment that makes a statement clearly on Gale's interest in starting a family or his thoughts on children. I think it's a really interesting thought experiment to dissect and contemplate what kind of father Gale might be like based on the canon examples we have to work with. So whichever camp you fall into, so long as you're engaged and having fun with it, you're doing it right.

[asteriasfallingstarsandtears]

Not tagging this because I don't really want to contribute to the general discourse, but man, I am annoyed at the letter change. I've seen people be like oh but it looks better and fine, whatever, glad you do, but it doesn't change it takes away the nuance in a character that already has so fucking little in a game that he's supposed to be one of the three last antagonists of the game.

What was wrong with those letter beyond one single typo? Why did they need to change? Why could these new letters not be added in in addition to these existing letters.

Act 3 is a fucking disaster as is, Orin and Gortash get so little screen time, and what they do get, you can tell the actors are giving it their all. Besides that, we have a few scattered notes that give us backstory that are all optional and easily missed. If you don't go to the House of Hope and talk with the dwarf and find like one? Note, you don't find out that Gortash was sold to the Hells and was tortured daily. If you don't find his parents, you don't get the details of why he was sold and how his parents fucking despised him as a child.

Orin is likewise the same, you do have to face Sarevok to get the amulet to get into the Temple, but unless you go into his office, you won't learn before the Temple that Orin and Helena were victims of their father's abuse. If you don't use talk with the dead on Helena you miss out on a lot of how she gave everything to Sarevok and Bhaal only to be deemed as nothing more than a womb to be filled and a sacrifice to her God.

You have to find this note or talk with Helena to confront Orin and make her question what happened and force Bhaal's hand and see just how bad the abuse and trauma of Orin and by extension Durge and every Bhaalspawn mentioned in the game has undergone for Bhaal.

You have to undergo very specific actions in very specific orders to unlock memories for Durge and a number of notes just do not exist in the game if you are not playing the Durge, or are replaced by other notes that do not tell the story of Orin, Durge and the Temple of Bhaal.

Orin gets more attention given to her stuff than Gortash ever does. You cannot confront Gortash with your knowledge. There's hardly anything for you to do with him with the information you can gather.

So taking away from an already barebones character frankly (ha) sucks.

And before anyone tried to say something, no, this is not me excusing anyone's actions, they did what they did, they're all serial killers, slavers, and worse. Whatever, it's a game, they're very clearly Bad(tm), but they're also very interesting characters who have their stories squandered.

If you can't understand why this bothers someone, imagine your favourite character being rewritten for the worse post game and think about how much that would suck for your enjoyment of the character.

Might delete later, but wanted to express my feelings and thoughts on the matter.

[elkkiel]

Same anon again, glad to see we agree! I get easily annoyed/tend to be very wary of people because of Discourse TM ive been in/seen go down and honestly i see a lot of it the st fandom that concerns me and annoys me to no end. So im glad to see we seem to be on roughly the same page here especially with how nasty (in the being an asshole to people who disagree way) people have gotten in discourse ive observed. Let people be horny as long as theres no real life sexual harassment/abuse and let people have fun with interpretations of art (as long as theyre not being weird about real life events that inspired the Perceived As Horny art) yknow? I brought in some other discourse here with this ask in particular but i have been very bitter about people lately lol

With how generally sex-positive the fandom is (like in terms of acceptance of sexuality, esp kink and paraphilia), it's a little surprising that people would actually get that up in arms over something like this.

Personally, from my own observations, I'd mostly attribute it to how booktok's kind of adopted ST + Vess as some shallow, sexy spooky anthem/daddy dom character. If booktok is already perceived as 1) low-quality lit, 2) romanticizing heteronormative abuse fantasies, and 3) kinda "cringe", I could see people being extra negative when their fave's starting to be associated with the community.

Which, I understand both sides. I would like to lick the body paint off of Vessel as much as anyone else here. But, the appreciation goes far beyond sexuality, and it's not a factor in my overall love for the band. It can be annoying to see people fawn over "baby-making metal" and our beloved, shirt-avoidant Best Boy at a horny surface-level appreciation. Especially since a lot of the tiktok fandom that might overlap with booktok are sometimes the ones that take thirsting into actual objectifying territory. The music is far deeper than its sex appeal and the community is more than just folks who scream daddy at the barricade during Atlantic lol (idk if that's happened but like you know what I mean hopefully)

So yeah, I get why people would be upset over it. If it were up to me, I wouldn't want Sleep Token to be associated with people's generalized (and sometimes legitimate) negative opinions about booktok. I love them and I wish people got to form their own views unclouded by horny digital shrieking lol. However, this is real life, and I am a mature(?) adult person who can move the fuck on with my life and let the booktok horndogs straight up jork it to whatever they want. It doesn't affect me. And again, if they're not translating their potentially misinformed, hard dom daddy Vess fantasies into harmful irl practice, then who gives a fuck.

People need to chill and realize that there's always going to be aspects of a fandom that you can't control (I'm a veteran Dream stan, miss me with that fandom policing bullshit lol trust me it doesn't work). Just like there's going to be interaction/overlap with other communities that you personally don't agree with. Have your own opinions, share concerns for legitimate worries that don't demonize the individuals themselves, and curate your own online experience to avoid things you don't vibe with.

[skaruresonic]

Adding to what that other anon said, it's obvious that the only reason they basically won't let Amy or other characters not loudly bring up her card """hyperfixation""" is because when they did it the first time, all the fans went "no way sega remembered something??? finally consistent lore oh my god???". It's just cheap fanservice repackaged as "staying true to the character". And the fandom won't be shutting up about it either now because that trait was already really prevalent in most fanworks once they caught wind of it, so sega "doing a good" here only serves as further validation.

Yeah, I'm really starting to suspect that people view Amy through a lens of Girl(tm), much like how folks reduce Shadow to a trauma receptacle.

She's not an individual; she has to represent something more than just herself. Much of the discourse surrounding her heavily suggests people believe she is inadequate on her own.

She always needs to be more or less of something depending on fandom zeitgeist. Less Sonic-crazy. Less "stalker"-ish. More feminist. More neurodivergent. More tomboy. Less tomboy. Girlier. Tougher. Softer. More Power of Heart. More Stronk. More level-headed. More tarot-reading.

Amy's traits can't just be incidental, occasional, or unique to her, and people tend to be weirdly extremist when it comes to her character. She can't just read tarot for fun in the same vein that Sonic simply likes to read books sometimes, it has to Say Something about her as a character.

Someone got a little irate with me for pointing out that, even though Frontiers pushing the whole tarot thing in our faces is annoying, Amy did use her cards once in Battle to find Sonic. There is canonical precedent for her using them, and therefore saying she never used them in the games is just as erroneous as pushing them as her obsession. But as usual, folks are eager to blow this stuff way out of proportion. I often notice as well that Amy is not allowed the multiplicity seen in male characters like Sonic and Shadow. What I mean by that is that her traits cannot be contradictory, conditional, incidental, or nuanced, since she can only represent one platonic ideal at a time. She can't be a girly bruiser and a straw feminist a la Boom!Amy any more than she can read tarot cards and still crush on Sonic.

That's why I think the whole "Amy's crush on Sonic is a prominent part of her character/Amy is defined by other things" debate is a false dichotomy, even when folks pretend to have some sort of enlightened centrist take and say "both are good." Because like, you're still playing into the underlying idea of the dichotomy's existence to begin with. You wouldn't need to say "both are good" if you believed her character had the potential to be more than that.

Add the fact that, as the fourth ranger of Team Sonic, whatever she does is considered emblematic of how the Sonic series views girls as a whole, and the whole discourse surrounding her character quickly becomes cumbersome. It's so transparent that people are desperate to slap any old stereotypical Girl Trait onto her, because it's not coming from a place of "How can we flesh Amy out as a character?" so much as "SEE, SHE'S NOT SONIC-CRAZY."

Personally, I think a more useful litmus test would be:

A.) Does she have a conversation with Tails? B.) Do they talk about something other than Sonic? Note how I specify Tails here, not Knuckles or Cream. That's deliberate. Both Amy and Tails are typically defined via their relationship to Sonic, even when their character arcs center around striking out on their own.

It stands to reason, then, that as two of the series' most senior and prominent deuteragonists, they ought to be able to have one (1) conversation about something that isn't Sonic.

That is to say, at this point in the series, they ought to have enough substance of character to be able to sustain an organic conversation together without falling back on their relationships with Sonic as a talking point.

You'd think that'd be an incredibly low bar to clear, but even the games fail to hurdle it most of the time.

[idiot-mushroom]

feeling weird abt sending an ask about this cuz i dont wanna get into discourse and you dont even have to respond but i can see a lot of well meaning ppl tryina help you with stuff and i super dont wanna be that kinda person(tm) about getting in on other ppls business, but as a fellow confused gender person but someone w more experience in these spaces, a lot of the like. "genital preference" "split attraction model" ideas can be heavily rooted in transphobic dialogue so watch out for that.

i get people wanting labels for specifics, but sometimes you just feel shit thats outside of labels you already feel comfortable with on a person to person basis, and thats fine. its more important to just be comfortable w yourself instead of trying to find the hyper specific labels that you think fit. in the real world queer labels are much more diverse and less concerned about if you're REALLY a lesbian or if youre REALLY a man.

frfr, that’s why i’m more just clinging onto my queer identity, i’ve also been using transmasc for a while aswell

and imma be so real rn, i don’t even know what i like in bed, i’m a virgin and I’m probably gunna stay that way for atleast another year or so

imma be so fr rn, i just don’t want to think what flavor of gay i am, i’m just going to enjoy who i am 👍

[22degreehalo]

Imagine if aces and aros talked about gay people the way gay people talk about us.

"Don't forget: gay people are totally valid and they are welcome in the AIQ community!!! 😊 Sure, they might not experience aphobia like aces and aros do, but people shouldn't have to prove they're Oppressed Enough[tm] to be included! :)"

"To be honest, hating on gay people makes no sense to me at ALL lmao. Like aphobia I get, but for a straight person to insist that everyone MUST get a partner NO MATTER WHAT, and then throw a fit because it's the wrong kind of partner?! I don't know man, I just think it's only control freaks who could really be bothered, yknow?"

"And after 'Demi-Aces and Demi Gods' we are proud to announce our first ever gay panel! It's called "GG: homosexuality 101" and it'll answer any questions you might have about what it's like to be gay (no, they aren't all polyamorous!) ending with a rousing discussion about the place of the G within the AIQ+ community as a whole. Following that, we have 'Asexual fashion history'..."

"Oh my god I am SO tired of homophobia discourse. Like my guys literally NONE of this matters in the real world. Just log off and interact with your real-world community and touch grass, okay?"

"Um... no offence, but why is talking about gay people so important to you? We're discussing aspec oppression and you're very obviously derailing. :/ like it is just NOT the same thing. If you want to talk about gay issues (like I get that it could feel uncomfy when people expect you to have a different kind of partner than you want) make your own post, please."

"Oh, I get this question a LOT haha! Don't worry, it is SUPER common for young aspecs to invent gay attraction in an attempt to repress their own aspecness! If you ever decide that that's what happening, and you were just dealing with internalised aphobia, it's okay! You're still a valid aro/ace <3'

"But like. How... would 'homophobia' even work lmfao. Like you're being restricted from couples' benefits by?? Being in a couple the wrong way???? Literally nobody is going to throw you out of your home for having a child with your partner. 🙄 So unless you can provide ANY evidence that gay people are oppressed FOR BEING GAY (i.e. lacking m/f attraction AND having same-gender attraction SIMULTANEOUSLY) then uhhh maybe you should stop talking over people who are ACTUALLY oppressed. (No corrective rape doesn't count lmfao that is literally just aphobia.)"

"Welcome to AIQ pride 2023!!! Gays and lesbians are allowed but y'all are on thin fucking ice 🤪 Ugh it's just a joke lmfao. It's not serious. Jesus I wish y'all WERE oppressed sometimes, maybe you'd have an actual sense of humour 💀"

"Ummmm sorry, but can you take down your post? This celebrity is REALLY important to the aspec community and I really don't appreciate you implying he could be gay :/ Like he literally already said he doesn't like girls. What more do you want lmfao he's aroace. Why is it so important for you to erase that and force him into an amatonormative relationship? Creepy 😬"

"Sorry but I'm just not comfortable seeing talk about 'homophobia' on my post. I repressed my aroaceness for a really long time by trying to convince myself I was gay and it was super traumatic for me. But even if I hadn't you should've known how this reblog might come across to any young aspecs struggling to accept themselves."

"DNW: gay/lesbian characters. No offence but they're always boring ass issue fics written by teenagers trying to prove how Progressive they are. It's always so ridiculously forced and ooc. Like who CARES if you're gay anyway lmfao just go to a bar and have Good Allo Sex or something, you ain't special."

"Mmmm personally, I think that 'homo' and 'hetero' are more like modifiers, really...? I mean, what matters most is whether or not you're actually IN a relationship. The kind of relationship itself just doesn't really matter all that much. I mean, that makes sense, right? 'No shirt' is a wayyy bigger difference from 'blue shirt' than 'red shirt.' So personally I think homosexuality is valid but it's not an identity, it's just a modifier for allosexuality. :)"

"...ugh, look, what's probably going on here is there's some kind of confounding variable at work, like gay people are more likely to be younger (since it's a pretty new identity) so of course their overall wellbeing is lower. That's just logic. But it just doesn't make sense for gay people to be oppressed: they have their identity validated by straight people all the time. So unless you can explain how you can be constantly validated, but still oppressed, these numbers mean nothing."

[isatoru]

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[lookwhatilost]

Ages ago, I'd started writing a draft effortpost about the damage that I think leftist control of trans issues does to trans issues. It was half rant – as probably most trans people in my reader base here can attest to, leftist culture and leftist norms dominate trans rights spaces, and being out of line with them will lead to you being made an example of in some vicious, nasty ways. It's not just damaging when you're a target. It's damaging even when you're part of the in group, because it fucks with your head in an invisible way when you swallow some of the insane social norms and practices. You get all your opinions from social pressure. And like everyone who escapes from a seemingly all-pervasive in group with such totalizing, black and white, social pressure, like I have been for a long time now, you're desperate to see your escape from that social pressure validated, or to try to hit back and go hard to reclaim your sanity. You first start with tentatively questioning things with a lot of caveats, when deep down, you feel insane that you're having to add caveats to things that seem to make perfect sense, while also feeling insane because "why does nobody else realize this?".

But as the public dialogue got just that little bit worse on trans issues, I shelved it indefinitely. It's the sort of thing that'd probably be fine to post somewhere when there's less macro question of attitude to trans issues, but at a time when "DAE anti-woke?" posting is at an all time high, it didn't seem appropriate.

But I started that post by pointing out that one of the first trans athletes in American olympic history said, on her facebook, was that her dream was to win an American gold medal, so she could burn the American flag on the podium.

Holy fuck.

Could you imagine what that would've fucking done? Trans issues can already seem, to many people, like the fringe, radical, weird "obviously some stuff goes too far" invalid social issue because of its association with leftists, cancel culture, "twitter Wokes(TM)", and so forth. How much worse when you dig that association in with concrete headlines like "First trans olympic medalist burns the American flag on podium"? How many normie moderates would this push over the line, or how many of the few remaining "live and let live" conservatives would radicalize in response to this as right wing and other Facebook media jumped up to say "You see? Trans people really are these radical extremists!"

And the worst part is that we know that a significant number of other trans women, in their continued attempts to burn their hard won, minuscule social capital to the ground, would immediately start celebrating it, and making this very, very, aggressively clear to everyone online, just to make sure the discourse is as bad as possible, and just to also make sure there's extra fuel for anyone who wants to link being trans to being a leftist antifa extremist anarchist who hates America. They'll make sure to tell everyone "Yes! You're right! That's what it means! We are unironically in favor of this!".

So I think it's pretty intuitive to say, leftists are probably hurting liberal social causes.

This isn't an online issue. Leftist activists take over boards of things like NYC pride because of leftist culture online, and remaining part of the in group, is very important to the types of young people who get that involved. That's why NYC Pride banned cops from attending, despite this being opposed by the actual members of NYC pride, because the board overruled them. All those twitter threads about how if you support cops you're being homophobic, or endorsing violence to anyone who's LGBT, and so much else, is kind of undermined by that fact that the rank and file NY pride people couldn't even support that measure, and had to have it ruled over them.

That means liberals should try to take those social causes back.

I think a lot of people's first instinct is "That's not possible, they own the issues now, there's nothing we can do about it". I'm gonna address that in a moment. Because first, it's not really enough to go on our intuitions, we should also probably get some evidence that a certain breed of leftist activism hurts liberal social causes.

One way to do that is go into the evidence that a certain brand of leftist behavior around social issues probably damages the social issues. In terms of tweets online, here's a December 2022 study that shows evidence that leftist posts about race are rated as less informative, more objectionable, generate more backlash from conservatives, and fail to persuade "racial moderates". While meanwhile, "moderately progressive" posts generated more persuasion. That's pretty good evidence!

Also worth considering are backlash effects from corporate diversity training, which given how much of a shift there is in these spaces to be informed by people like Tema Okun, well... I think that supports the premise as well.

That's not much evidence to support the intuition that leftist activism is harmful and liberal activism would be more effective, I grant – but I figure the intuition is strong enough that you just saw some links while I confirmed your priors and went "Damn! Based and Evidence-pilled again!"

But I think frankly, even if there wasn't evidence of it harming the cause in terms of public opinion, the evidence that it harms the causes via the effects it has on the people it's supposed to advocate for are frankly reason enough to care. I genuinely, legitimately don't think there will be one trans user who will read this post and go "Actually, leftist dominance of trans spaces has never negatively effected me".

Some people would say "But that's just online, not real life" – again, remember NY pride. Gay leftists are the ones who overruled the normal people, taking over positions of power in important organizations, and probably the types of important organizations that say, media people consult with to learn what the appropriate, sensitive language is, or what kind of things are correct to say about trans people. In a real way, it provides really strong control over the narrative!

Leftists also believe in intersectionality – that is, that all these causes and issues are inseparable, and that this should be emphasized as much as possible. The practical result is that the issue will never be separated, in public, from other causes, and so whatever cause is being represented by leftists will be associated with every other leftist cause as they grow more power over activist organizations.

It's very easy to sound like you're exaggerating, alarmist, and insane over this stuff, but huge swathes of leftist culture are basically dangerous to liberalism! It's bad mentally to be in, and it basically outright encourages thinking not based on the facts, or reason – which can be hostilely dismissed as debate bro culture or whatever the fuck – but on basically just pure social influence. I have posted about this before, but opinions in leftist spaces get washed through a complex process of authority, social proof, and rationalization, while also creating immense social and moral pressure to make adopting whatever the Right Opinion is mandatory. If you're someone who touches grass, and doesn't get involved in these sorts of things, this might seem like an insane, alarmist description of it. But it's why opinions spread in leftist spaces the way they do, and it's one more reason why it's important that we try to ensure that liberal perspectives can win out for liberal causes.

I have a really simply solution to this: Liberals should become activists, or interested in supporting activists.

But as people would generally recognize, social causes are very hard, and doing social causes to attempt to replace leftist influence is an extremely steep mountain to climb for the amount of liberals who can be bothered to do something at all. All of that's true, but it's not an argument against doing activism. A marginal positive effect is a marginal positive effect. Why shouldn't we pursue that? If you pursue marginal positive effects over time, then they add up. I'm fully aware that there's not going to be some massive liberal activist org over night that can engage in Evidence Based Activism or fund and support mass deep canvassing efforts, since I don't even know if the HRC can afford that sort of thing.

But a beginning investment in the kind of infrastructure, knowledge, framework, experience, support, or spaces in general for liberal approaches to social causes, particularly anything that emphasizes an evidence based approach, could have a lot of potential for success. Even if they're small successes, over time creating these networks of liberal social activists, even if they don't do much other than assist in research for effective ways of reducing prejudice, or create and promote liberal perspectives on the issues with like meme instagram pages, or whatever, can build up over time. That's the value of organizing.

It's definitely not much. But we don't need to leave marginal positive utility on the table while the cost per unit is low enough to make it profitable!

[coppercanary]

I posted 13,581 times in 2022

That's 2,001 more posts than 2021!

14 posts created (0%)

13,567 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@holsten-from-hasa

@abyssopelagiccs

@theminecraftbee

@binomist

@bdoubleowo

I tagged 1,456 of my posts in 2022

#grian - 218 posts

#fave - 207 posts

#gtwscar - 113 posts

#etho - 101 posts

#save - 96 posts

#bdubs - 96 posts

#hermitcraft - 85 posts

#import.txt - 77 posts

#mumbo - 67 posts

#empires - 63 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#also if skizz was in dlsmp and he didn't get impulse as his soulmate im sorry but that'll be a crime. they share hearts all the time already

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Hi! List five things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox of the last ten people who reblogged something from you! Spread the happiness and positivity

(creature... That's a funky creature in your icon)

hi! :D

(yeeee the baba is such a creature . an Animal. i love them so much)

things that make me happy hmmm ,, reading (particularly fanfics tbh fjdjdh), my frens (looking @ the dynamos and chaos server here love you guys <3), i really love warm blankets, hot chocolate, and having little quiet moments to myself where i can just relax and breathe . is nice :3

2 notes - Posted May 24, 2022

#4

our dog oscar had a minor surgery this morning , luckily now he is home safe and well, if very sleepy. he has to wear the Cone of Shame But Soft tm and can’t walk around much but he’s been napping since i got home anyways <3

2 notes - Posted April 5, 2022

#3

heyo finally gonna make a pinned. after over 20k posts . yay?

we're the aviary (system), collectively we go by plural they/them

on our blog you’ll find mostly mcyt content - hermitcraft and third/last life mostly - plus anything else we think is worth reblogging, ie shitposts

asks and dms are always open we'll do our best to reply

we try not to engage in discourse, please don’t come to us with the intention of harassment, either aimed at us or any other group adding onto the above we post and reblog shipping content . we'll tag it if asked to however if you're heavily against that this probably isn't the place for you

we love seeing like / rb spam!!! feel free to do it to your content it makes us very happy to see

don’t have a specific dni / byf or whatever just don’t be creepy ok? ok cool. aviary out (some more misc info below cut)

alter info (just the ones you'll see around most often):

canary, host, they/them or ae/aer - main one running this blog, mostly it's me you'll see doing stuff grian, c!grian fictive, he/him or xe/xem - i think the c things are weird im just grian but not in mc anymore there are more of us but they can make their own intros if and when they want

tagging system is as follows: [name]talks - we say random shit [name]answers - answering stuff people throw at our inbox [name]draws - art tag [name] refers to the person responsible for the post

3 notes - Posted May 2, 2022

#2

baba

babababababbabababbaabbababababababababab

3 notes - Posted April 15, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

discovering that there is no fandom for the wildings + the hundred names of darkness on tumblr is making me sad . pleas eplease please why do my favourite cat books not get enough appreciation ): they’re better than waca i prommy

if anyone has read them and wants to talk hmu

4 notes - Posted April 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[twilightofthe]

Do y’all think there are like, Jedi cosplayers? Like, in-universe ones.

I mean we’ve already decided there are definitely books and movies and tv shows and etc about the Jedi Order and what outsiders think of it or suspiciously accurate media secretly produced by Jedi themselves, and we know people write Jedi RPF on Space AO3 about the high profile ones

But im just imagining like, actual Jedi cosplayers. People who go deep into trying to recreate lightsabers and getting robes right. They’ve got their own forums and blogs and communities for it.

There’s discourse for it, of course, with people being like “uh hello that’s kinda disrespectful that’s someone’s actual religion bro” and “ew but they’re Problematique(TM) don’t you know they steal babies and eat them” but as canon has established, the outside world just doesn’t know that much about the Jedi so the majority of cosplayers are just regular galactic citizens who want to dress up as mystical legendary heroes

But basically what I want is just a story where a Jedi cosplayer with a p good kit decides that they’re gonna try to get into the Jedi temple and see how far they make it. Now, this has been tried countless times before. The Temple gets people like this trying to get past the visitor-open areas like once a week, and nobody gets too far before someone figures them out and they’re politely escorted back to the visitor areas before they even notice it happened (and occasional bounty hunters breaking into the archives but shhhhh)

No but this cosplayer is dedicated. They do their research from whatever videos on the internet they can find. They’ve got a GOOD outfit going on. Maybe a family member of theirs owns a shop a Jedi frequents so they’ve overheard conversations and pick up names and locations.

They walk up the steps, through the public-accessible area, then through a door they know they shouldn’t be going through. And maybe they’re slightly Force Sensitive themself, but somehow people don’t notice them? Like no disrespect to the remaining Masters/Knights/Padawans, but maybe it’s a busy day and news just happened of a major battle that was won on the front and the students all had a big galactic history exam today and there’s a saber tournament scheduled for later and the Halls of Healing have just had an outbreak of pink eye amongst the crechelings.

So yeah cosplayer just gets in and starts walking around and interacting with people and tries the cafeteria food and picks a flower and does not get caught until they hop in a lift to see where it goes and suddenly the Council is Very confused because this was not who their 1200 meeting was with?

Idk I just feel like this would be fun

[spicytrashthe1st]

Obey me boys "i beg to differ" "then beg"

Lucifer

"I beg to differ"

U fool. U absolute buffoon. He realises what his said too late. By the look on his face he already knows what ur gonna say but is still irritated when u say "then beg". Will walk away from u, is 100% done w ur shit.

"Then beg"

He says it w so much sex in his voice that u cant not be flustered. If u cant recover feel free to retreat, if Mc.exe comes back online climb into that bitches lap n whine a "please". He'll break, trust me.

Mammon

"I beg to differ"

We all love to make Mam's beg, he's just so cute when he does it. Considerin he says this in front of his bros the poor boy doesnt see it comin. So when u say "then beg" he freezes, full body blush like hes a kettle ready to boil before yeetin himself out the room. Congrats, uv broken him, better go after him before he runs into a wall.

"Then beg"

He's so smug when he says this its too cute. Like full on hands on hips bendin down to ur level smiling all the way.

Dont back down. Dont u dare back down.

Sensually grasp the sides of his face, only leave an inch between ya n say "oh great mammon, would u please". Break him.

Leviathan

"I beg to differ"

Big regrettie spaghetti as soon as he says it. He waits for ur response but it never comes so he looks up at u. Big mistake. He gulps at ur wicked grin. "Then beg" n oh boy does he.

"Then beg"

Y'all r in full fanboy discourse mode so he says it w such conviction. Naw, look at ur boy bein so confident. Take a picture, itll last longer, especially since ur gonna wipe it of in a second. Go all out. Crawl into his lap n go full anime gurl w a "Leviachan, please, please, pretty please?". Get the smellin salts, u just k.o'ed this boy.

Satan

"I beg to differ"

U respond w "then beg" without even thinkin about it. U both blink at each other like 'did that really just happen?'. Then this shithead gets that demure smile on his face n u know ur fucked. The way this man says please leaves ur entire being tingling.

"Then beg"

Smug bastard tm. U cannot visibly break his resolve, however, blush stained cheeks r still a win.

Asmodeus

"I beg to differ"

He's waitin for u to say "then beg" like a dog lookin at a nice jucy steak. Will u give in?

"Then beg"

Doesnt really expect u to beg, but that just means that u can do a sneak attack. Fluster the avatar of lust at ur own risk.

Beelzebub

"I beg to differ"

He looks confused when u ask him to beg. He does the dogo head tilt n u have to tackle hug him. Mission failed, we'll get 'em next time.

"Then beg"

Gotta be honest, i dont see him sayin this unless in jest. That bein said, he did ask.

Belphegor

"I beg to differ"

Gettin brat boy to beg is harder than tryin to get Luci to sleep at a reasonable time. Most of the time he'll scoff at u. But on a rare day he'll get all sly n rub himself against u like a cat, lookin up at u w those eyes that make u horni grip before sayin please.

"Then beg"

Never beg this man. Ur better than this.

Make this brat pay for his insolence.

Diavolo

"I beg to differ"

He doesnt know. I always see Dia as both oblivious n in the know at the same time. It shows when u ask him to beg. Like a light bulb goin off in his head he looks at u w such smolder u almost regret sayin it, almost.

Dia begs either like a dog wanting to go for a walk or a brat. He begs like a brat this time. Pound his ass, its what he deserves.

[Im changin Dia's status from baby boy to bothe brat n baby boy, it has been decided]

"Then beg"

Bratty behaviour engaged, tread carefully soldier. To defuse do so cutely, he become a fit of giggles. If u wish to escalate be prepared to back ur shit up.

Barbatos

"I beg to differ"

Homie. Brother. Senpai. Look at me.

If u ask this man to beg u r unleashing a beast that could destroy us all.

So do it anyway!

Honestly gettin this man to break his whole butler shtick is a challenge, but a challenge worth doin. Im just warnin ya that the amount of horni ur about to unleash is uhh...well itll be somthin else, lets just leave it at that.

"Then beg"

Please leave it cute.

Leave the horni outta the kitchen.

Simeon

"I beg to differ"

He knows. The fucker knows exactly what he's doin. Will act all innocent but theres that look in his eyes that screams otherwise.

[Is...is Simeon a brat? 🤔]

"Then beg"

Would u beg for this angel man?

Do u think he'll show his tru intent if u do?

Solomon

"I beg to differ"

Is this wizard boy even capable of beggin? Only one way to find out! He'll do it if he thinks it'll fluster u.

"Then beg"

Dont let him, never let him win. Cake that shit on when u say "oh my beloved king". Or flip it on its head, how dare he tell u to beg, put him in his place.

[This post has been updated to reflect my findings after makin this post]

[peachymess]

Y’know… I went to the movies today to watch a kids movie with my sister. It’s a pretty high profile movie; a reimagining of a Christmas film large parts of my country has watched every Christmas for decades. For that reason, pretty much everyone has an opinion on this film. And whole that’s another discussion for another time, my point is the movie’s been talked about. It’s not gone by in silence.

So, I watched it…. And there’s a gay kiss in there. The prince’s two best friends fall in love in the background throughout the film. And while they’re silly characters by design, their endgame doesn’t feel played for laughs and they share a cute kiss and look happy.

And I just… I’m so happy. You know why? I haven’t heard a single word of this. Nobody’s had a public issue with this on-screen representation. In a children’s movie, no less! Nor has their inclusion been used for woke marketing as far as I’ve seen! It was just…. not made into a big deal! And as far as I could tell, nobody in the audience today batten an eye at the scene either. It all just felt so… normal. And nice. And I felt so warm and fuzzy because… that felt like a step in the right direction. Like we’re at a point now where it’s just… normalized. Accepted.

Of course, I might have just missed out on wherever the discourse tm took place, but yeah… the fact that I can walk into a children’s movie and see lgbtq+ rep and not having been made obnoxiously aware of the “token” already (side-eyeing Beauty and the Beast here), tells me we’re on the right track. 🥰

[carriesthewind]

The recent twitter kerfuffle over “are young men getting to have enough sex?!” has gotten me thinking about how we talk about the importance of listening to, and believing, the people who are affected by a situation discussing that situation. Specifically, I’ve seen a number of men who, when they receive pushback for giving a Bad Take (tm) on the issue, respond with some version (implicit or explicit) of, “my take is based on my experience and you all are Bad/Misandrists for refusing to listen to me about my own experience.”

While the loudest of the voices making these arguments are doing so in bad faith, I fully believe that many of them (or people quietly reading along) are genuine. And it’s not hard to see a misguided but good-faith young man saying, hey, wait a minute. I’m a young man who is not having sex when I really want too, and I think it’s b/c [modern women won’t date poor men/my head is the wrong shape/misandry has replaced misogyny/etc.] and the solution is [mandated sex for involuntarily celebrate men/punishments for women who cheat/focusing on discrimination against men b/c women have too much social power now/etc.]. These lefty progressive types are always saying we should listen to the people who are actually affected by an issue - so why are they not listen to me when I try to talk about this important issue that affects me?

Of course, that’s because there is a difference. Of course we should listen to young men (and not-young men!) talk about the experience of not being able to have sex. And while we (as a society) generally already do exactly this, there is definitely improvements we can make to ensuring that men - especially non-traditionally “masculine” men and men who are marginalized in various ways (gay, trans, fat, disabled, not white, etc.) - have safe paces to discuss those feelings in vulnerable and open ways and be heard. But these men being the authorities on how they feel about their own experiences is not the same as knowing what the problems are or what to do about them, and that is where the disconnect lies.

The difference is between being an expert on your own experience, expert on the broader experience of the relevant group, and being an expert on the problem and solutions.

Likewise, when we talk about listening to minorities and disadvantaged groups - listen to black people, believe women about sexual assault, focus on trans people when talking about trans issues, etc - normally, we are saying this because we are saying to listen to those experiences, because as a culture, as a whole, we don’t even generally accept those experiences exist. The panic over young men not getting to have enough sex is regular enough that I had to specify the recent discourse - the culture accepts that there are young men who don’t get to have sex they want and it sucks for them. But mainstream culture and politically powerful actors do not necessarily accept systemic racism, the widespread sexual assault of women, or even that trans people really exist as a valid way to exist.

Furthermore, because the experiences of minorities are under-appreciated and their struggles disbelieved, members of those minority groups are often the ones who have to become experts in the problems and potential solutions. To the extent mainstream culture and power structures even recognize those issues, they may be using a bigoted framework to study and understand them. This is further complicated by the fact that because members of these groups are disadvantaged, they often have difficulty accessing the formal structures of licensing and expertise (e.g. academia), and so have to seek expertise outside these normal structures. Even if members of the group are able to get into academic or power structures, 1) the most likely members to get into those power structures are likely to be the ones most willing and able to conform to the bigoted hierarchy and 2) if they don’t conform, they will often receive institutional pushback. This is why it’s a good idea, when researching a topic that affects a minority or disadvantaged group, to "listen to marginalized voices" - e.g. seek out voices from that group to see what they have to say about the formal research and research institutions.

And it’s worth talking about this distinction explicitly because while I think it’s something a lot of us progressive lefty types kind of intuit, and it is something that is talked about in (good) activist circles, it’s something that I don’t often seen laid out in online and casual spaces. And I think it’s one of the things that leads to a lot of the problems in those spaces.

Most of us understand, for example, that if someone with dyslexia says their dyslexia was cured by Scientology, we don’t need to believe them. But I think that sometimes that understanding gets confused into “everyone knows Scientology is bs so obviously that person’s experience is bs,” rather than, “this person can speak about their experience of dyslexia and how they don’t feel like it affects them anymore, but they do not have the necessary expertise to say that it is cured (if other evidence points to it not be cured) or what cured it, and they things they are claiming go against a vast weight of other evidence.” This lack of distinction, I think is how we get everything from Tumblr nonsense like people pretending to be lesbian HIV-positive nonbinary Chinese-Pakistani trafficking survivors living in India when they are actually white American teenagers, spouting absolute nonsense and throwing their “identities” around when people call them on it; to lgbtq+ twitter uses frequently piling on to other lgbtq+ figures (usually transwomen) for perceived imperfections and justifying their own actions by describing their own feelings of pain; to fandom puritans declaring that they know the solution to abuse (removing “bad fic”) based on their own personal discomfort with said fic; to grifters (or even just people who are severely under-informed but don't know it) who leverage their status as members of disadvantaged groups to claim expertise and either spread misinformation or divert resources to their scams. And I think it’s why I’ve seen some people get genuinely turned around and not know how to respond to people like our hypothetical sincere young man above.

And I don’t think there is any universal solution. But part of the solution is more general education about, and mindfulness of, these essential differences in expertise - expertise in your lived experience, expertise on the general experience of a marginalized group, expertise on the problem, and expertise on finding potential solutions.

[bluewinnerangel]

I am here to cry. I'm not trying to make everything about Larry and I'm most definitely not trying to downplay the importance of everything Liam said, his friendships within the band, his struggles and his courage or anything like that. I really really respect him and appreciate him saying these things out loud and I definitely want to support him in every way possible. It's just that the podcast brought about so much of Lirry and Lilo on my feed that I just had this moment where I once again realised the stark contrast between any interaction between ot4 with that of L and H. There were sooo many instances after the hiatus began of Liam and Niall mentioning their recent interactions with the rest of the band, even the most trivial of things. Even Louis has discussed about his friendship with Liam and Niall multiple times since. But there are like 5 instances of Harry even mentioning Louis' name and a little more of Louis mentioning Harry ( one of them being the ObVIOuSLy interview 🤮, which , under normal circumstances would have atleast mentioned something like we are still good friends or just good friends or SOMETHING OTHER THAN A DISTINCT BLAME GAME) . The contrast is fucking unbelievable and imo one of the biggest pieces of evidence that something is not right. It is just so sad when it hits you in the middle of the day what an amazing human Louis is and Niall and Liam get to gush about him all the time and all Harry can publicly do is sing Sweet Creature and IICF with all his heart and I'm 🥺🥺🥺 No but SERIOUSLY this is up there with 1D day, as deliberate, as evident as that seperation! How do people never see that? Even the media never publishes anything with their names together but I'm sure 54 outlets will pick up how sweet Liam was about his bandmates in the podcast. It is SO EVIDENTLY FISHY I-

Ughhh

You don't even have to post this, I know you are wary of discourse ( as you have every right to be, I love how unique and fresh your blog is in this fandom, you do youuu♥️) I just wanted to cry here because I just now saw the post you made about Harry acknowledging Louis publicly :''')

Hi! This is a lovely message. Thanks for choosing to fly with Not A Discourse Blog But Who Am I Kidding airways, I mean you can't just throw this in my inbox and then go "ignore me lol" <3

I kinda rambled on and I think the ask is already a scroll so under the cut:

It happens sometimes that the dash throws 2 things at you back and forth and you can't help but go some places again. I mean we all kinda got punched in the face again about what they went through.

Also wanna leave this link because I love it.

I kinda view things from 2 angles here and they somewhat counter each other. I don't think I have to pick which one it is, it could be some shades of both. None of us know what's really going on, we just fill in the blanks with whatever makes sense to us, this is just something I think to be seeing, but you have to kinda pay close attention and have certain ideas of what they're like (for good reason) so it's different for everyone, anyway:

On one hand I feel like it's deliberate, either something that just happened naturally or being an approach to really have seperated public images. No matter what it is it's just a fact, it's clear as day, that publicly their images have been drifting apart for years. Maybe, hopefully, possibly with the hinting of new era's we get a punkrock and a glamrock couple pls universe pls I know your ask is just talking about mentioning each other but like their whole images, the parts that seem reinforced. How they act. How they look. The things they do and don't mention. The vibes. There's a choice of which parts of them to show and bring along to the public view, to emphasize, and other parts that are just kinda shoved under the carpet. Sure these other bits come out sometimes but you wont find them in the TM powerpoint you know. (don't take that literal pls) And to me it almost looks like they both picked one side of the things they're into and stuck with that. Like Louis took the the england boyo football man arctic monkeys loving sweatpants laddy lad let's watch a movie about cars things side and harry took the ... well the soft shit, older music, the romantic comedies, the stereotypical queer, lol. Not saying they're one and the same person and everything one likes the other does too, but if you just pay close attention you see they're not that one sided and they're both both of these things. Yet just when one is loud about one thing, the other's subtle. But the point is that with the image you see at first glance, nothing overlaps. Nothing. (I guess with the exception of ABBA. With abba they just said you know what? We share. I imagine a passionate debate on who gets to have abba and just being too stubborn. like nobody danced in the kitchen that day) And that's suspicious. That's hella suspicious.

So if that isn't a deliberate strategy, it feels like over time they both just kinda snowballed into it, like being on their toes not to mention the things the other is (publicly) into to the point where it's become out of character (I mean do take this literally) to go there. And then we can bring that to other behaviors too, like one is active on social media (to the point where he has the most? is it the most? interactivity on twitter? like son can tell he just farted and half a million people will be hitting that like button with the speed of light), the other went for being a vague mysterious lil siren. It would be quite out of character for Harry to drop vague shit on social media in the way Louis is doing, or for him to casually mention details the way Liam or Niall can. And I don't just mean about Louis, about anything and anyone. His image is absolutely based around mystery.

So all in all with The Contrast so great I feel indeed there's some level of awareness and deliberate choosing to show/not show some parts of them based on what the other's publicly showing, you know?

And no it's not that black and white, they're not one person and it's always been the case that Louis answered interview questions more directly and the kinda I'm a simple man with a girlfriend, which contrasts harry just sitting there and at most just not denying things, again they're not one and their willingness to say/not say stuff has always differed.

That kinda bleeds into the other viewpoint that maybe Harry just has a bit of a "what's it to you" attitude towards mentioning who he's close with, loves, cares about to the public. He's definitely big on confessing his love don't get me wrong it just shows he's full of it in everything, but he's not saying it, not in a literal sense. He hasn't said a word about Mitch and Sarah's baby publicly (and rightfully so, why would he), his TM instagram doesn't even follow his own mom and that's probably a bigger statement than we give him credit for, he remains silent on... well... pretty much everyhing. I think he decided a long time ago it's no need, no use, to try to have that be part of his public image. That it doesn't do anything at the end of the day, and that to try and push that onto his public narrative just.. isn't worth the energy. Like that it's best to just sit back and let the wild world just run off with whatever little thing whatever interviewer is projecting on him because it's not gonna matter anyway and just lemme film my little gay movie and do my little gay dance and sing my little deep songs and lemme go home the the blue skies byebyenow. yaknow? He's said that somewhere, that he only let's those parts of him kinda cross over in his music anyway.

Also I recently watched cosmic leeds' 2019 timeline and I believe there's quite some positive Harry mentions from Louis in there so I'm just gonna plomp that here because ~happiness~:

(context: the very few times harry acknowledged louis publicly post-hiatus)

[lucemferto]

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT TECHNOBLADE (or A Narrative Analysis of the Dream SMP Doomsday Event) - Script

Heyo! Per request I am posting the script to my video of the same name here on tumblr. I must warn you that just reading the script will probably not give you the full experience, so I would encourage you to watch the video (linked above).

There might also still be a lot of grammatical errors in the text, because I don’t proofread.

Okay, so! I don’t want this to turn into a reaction channel OR a Dream SMP channel for that matter! I am planning on doing a big dumb, way too long analysis video on the Dream SMP which will – at my current pace – come out in five years. I am already way too late on this one.

Spoiler Alert for the Doomsday Event that took place on the 6th of January in the Dream SMP. Surely the worst thing to take place on the 6th of January 2021 … I’m sorry, what’s this about the Capitol?

In case you don’t watch the SMP and need context: The Dream SMP is a Minecraft Multiplayer Server, that, throughout the last year, has transformed from a normal Let’s Play to an ongoing new-media series streamed by multiple high-profile streamers such as Dream, TommyInnit or Technoblade. It comes complete with script – by which I mean loose bullet points – and story events. It has attracted a large fanbase specifically invested in the story and less so in the actual gameplay content. Like I said before, I will probably do a big video on the Dream SMP at some point in the future.

The storyline is long and complicated and trying to explain it all would take up the majority of the video and there are other channels who have already done a much better job than I could ever hope to do, so give them a watch. I’ll try to summarize all that is pertinent to what I will talk about in this video.

Okay, let’s speedrun this summary. Cue the music!

Major Players here are TommyInnit, a founder of the independent nation of L’Manburg, Technoblade, an anarchist who was deep in conflict with L’Manburg, Tubbo, Tommy’s best friend and current president of L’Manburg, and Dream, the ruler of the Kingdom of the Dream SMP (even though he is not the king, but we’re not going to get into that right now). Tommy had in the past been exiled by Tubbo for endangering L’Manburg’s shaky peace with the Dream SMP. Tommy had then teamed up with Technoblade, who was hellbent on destroying L’Manberg after some prior altercations – more on that later.

Tommy and Tubbo came into conflict during a festival set-up to celebrate the friendship between L’Manburg and the Dream SMP. After punching out their feelings, Tommy came to the realization that his friendship with Tubbo was more important than his vendetta against Dream and those who exiled him. Techno took that change of heart badly and teamed up with Dream to destroy L’Manburg … and that’s exactly what happened.

Techno and Dream, with little to no opposition, obliterated L’Manburg with no hope for recovery leaving its inhabitants stranded hopeless and alone.

… And that’s what you missed on Dream SMP!

Okay. So, usually I just put whatever thought slime drips out of my mouth hole into your subscription box. But then I asked myself: “Am I not taking this a largely improvised nonsense story from a bunch of 16–24-year-olds a little too seriously?”. And then I remembered. I’m a pretentious bitch. I made an 18-minute video explaining why the popular commentary YouTuber memeulous is secretly the time travelling Anti-Christ, REASON HAS NO SWAY OVER ME!

So, like the English Major drop-out that I am, I will present you with two theses, which I will then combine into one … supratheses! That word doesn’t exist, I just coined it, it’s mine! I am very smart!

[I know words, I have the best words!]

 Thesis #1: The Fandom focuses too much on Character Analysis in Favour of Narrative Analysis

The Dream SMP is truly something special. It is uniquely singular in how it tells a story of this scope through its chosen medium. While there is an overarching script that lays out the plot points of the future, each of the 30+ streamers on the SMP are their own cameraman, director, writer and actor. You cannot watch “the Dream SMP” – if you attempted that, you would be 80 by the time you caught up to the Doomsday Event. You have to choose whom to watch. You have to choose your focal point character.

Because by the way the story is told and consumed – aka in such a compartmentalized fashion; you watch one streamer and get one character’s perspective – it has sort-of unintentionally conditioned fans to look at the SMP and its characters less as one coherent story with messages and themes and more as sports teams they can root for. You’re Team Techno or Team Tubbo or Team Tommy or Team JackManifoldTV (formerly known as Thunder1408) and every other side is in the wrong! It’s like Twilight for a decade old children’s game about virtual Lego!

Okay, I’m exaggerating, but the amount of discourse perpetuated by and revolving around so-called “apologists” – a terrible term that unfortunately has caught on – is really not something that I think is good for how we interact with the story of the Dream SMP.

The Dream SMP is discussed a lot on character-based level, which is, like I said before, hugely advantaged by the way the story is consumed by its audience. With traditional, visual media such as film for example, the audience can be made more aware of what messages the narrative might try to communicate on a narrative level without the need for an explicit narrator to tell you the moral.

As an example, in a movie you could have a smash-cut from the Butcher Army’s discussions about neutralizing the danger Technoblade poses to Techno being nice around villagers or taking care of animals. This would communicate on an extradiegetic level, that the Butcher Army is in the wrong with their assumptions. Alternatively, you could contrast Techno’s declarations that power corrupts and that Tubbo’s administration is cruel with Tubbo choosing not to punish Ranboo for his association with Techno – thus the narrative would communicate that Techno’s view of Tubbo and by extension the government is one-sided and not true to reality.

Stuff like that helps the viewer understanding a story holistically and manages to communicate stuff like themes and morals without having to solely rely on in-character logic and argumentation, which, as Ghostbur put it so eloquently, is comprised of a bunch of unreliable narrators.

Character analysis is great if we want dive deep, if we really want to give a character flavour and understand their motivations. It helps make the universe feel like it is alive, like it’s real. But – and this might be a shocker for you – it’s not real. It’s written. It is construction – and as such, in its construction, it has messages and themes and morals, intentionally or unintentionally.

By being so focused on specific characters and their individual journeys, viewpoints and motivation we really run the risk of not looking at the bigger picture and fail to see what the overarching narrative is actually communicating. And we may also fail to understand how characters might or might not fit into the overarching narrative.

Speaking of which …

 Thesis #2: Technoblade experiences very little Meaningfultm Thematic Conflict

Okay, let’s talk about Technoblade. I’m sure I’m not going to get any hate for this one.

I want to preface by saying that I don’t watch Technoblade’s streams; I catch up though clip channels and summaries. I’m mainly watching Tommy, Tubbo and Quackity – which is honestly already more than I can handle – but I want to be clear that while I’ll try to be as even-handed as possible – like I explained previously – the way I consumed the storylines will undoubtedly leave me with some bias.

Also, needless to say, I’m talking about the character Technoblade, not the actual content creator, unless I specifically say so. That should be obvious.

Now, I’m not doing a Technoblade character analysis, because that would be hypocritical of me – seeing how I just bitched about the overwhelming amounts of character analyses in the fandom – but I’ll try my best to summarize what is necessary.

Technoblade’s interesting in that he is a very static character – at least inwardly – he doesn’t change much. He is very steadfast in his beliefs and ideals and has very little introspection. He doesn’t question himself; he doesn’t waver, he is never in a bind about whether what he’s doing is right or wrong. He is very much a parallel to early TommyInnit – who, of course, famously said “I’m always in the right”.

And I want to emphasize that I mean this in no way as a critique of Techno’s character. A static character provides a nice contrast to more dynamic characters and can balance them out. It can also be utilised by the writing as a character flaw – which is what I hope content creator Techno is going for.

Like Techno doesn’t have a lot of empathy in the sense that he is particularly skilled at or interested in trying to see the viewpoints of others. There is never an attempt to reconcile, for example, the goal of the Pogtopians to reclaim L’Manberg and install another administration with his desire for an anarchist society. This is also compounded with his overreliance on violence as the only tactic for conflict resolution – Techno has a whole thesis statement about violence being the only universal language. I’m sure you’ve heard the quote.

And lastly, what really drives this all over the edge, is his all-or-nothing approach when dealing with the enemy – he is not so much eye for an eye as he is – to use another biblical example – you make fun of me for being bald and I’ll sic two bears on you that maul and kill you and 41 other children.

There’s also the open and completely unacknowledged hypocrisy of a self-described anarchist working together with a man that installs and dethrones Kings with his every whim – someone who – and I cannot stress this enough – hits about every box when it comes to the definition of tyrant.

So, what I’m saying is that Technoblade is the Dream SMP equivalent of Dick Chenney. C’mon you know it’s true! He will bomb that freedom into your country whether you want him to or not. That’s some cogent political commentary in the year 2021.

Okay, so now that I’ve outlined his character, what kind of conflicts does Technoblade face. Well, it’s mostly physical or external. He fights a lot whether it’s against Quackity or Sapnap or bodying Karl Jacobs five times in a row. And – with the exception of maybe Sapnap – none of it is challenging. Technoblade is the best PvP-Player on the server – there really isn’t much tension to be had from a purely physical fight.

So, how are these fights supplemented emotionally. Well, internally there is not a lot going on. As I said before, Technoblade isn’t really an introspective character. Even during his shouting match with Tommy there’s not a sense that Technoblade is wavering or unsure of himself in the way that Tommy is. He exposits that one of the reasons, he acts like he does is that he feels dehumanized; that people only use him like a weapon and then discard or even try to neutralize him once he’s no longer useful.

But that is not something that Technoblade has to grapple with – it’s not conflict for him, it’s more conflict for Tommy. Technoblade is self-assured in that he’s a person and not a weapon – it’s almost like there was a character arc there, where Technoblade self-actualizes and breaks away from the people that want to use him. But we didn’t see any of it. Technoblade unleashes the withers; then he goes into retirement because he wants to be, I suppose, and then he returns to violence as a reaction to the Butcher Army. There is a story of vengeance here, but not any conflict about being used. There is never a point where we see Technoblade come to this realization or comes to assert himself.

In season 1 there’s never a push from Pogtopia where the narrative frames them as exploiting Technoblade. He fights with them of his own volition, he gives them weapons and armour of his own volition. Nobody pressured Techno into procuring their inventory for the fight. And in Season 2, he’s the one to approach Tommy about their potential partnership – he is in the position of power here, explicitly not Tommy.

Like, I’m sorry, if this ruffles some feathers, but I really don’t see this arc where Technoblade is being used. There’s a story of misunderstanding and maybe co-dependency – but not of dehumanization. This entire line of thought seems to solely reference that moment, where Tommy says to Sapnap “I have the blade” during one of their wars – which, to base an entire emotional arc around that without any further set-up, is, and I’m sorry to say that, incredibly flimsy.

Okay, so we covered physical and emotional conflict? But what about conflict on the narrative level? Well, that leads me to my suprathesis …

 Suprathesis: The Narrative is Unclear on how it treats Technoblade … and that’s Not Good.

Here’s a Hot Take: The narrative of Season 1 treats Technoblade way less sympathetically than that of season 2.

Let me explain. The narrative of Season 1 revolves mostly around Wilbur and Tommy. The emotional fulcrum of the overall narrative is Wilbur’s rise and fall from Grace – and Tommy succeeding him as symbol of L’Manberg’s “special”-ness. Now I will talk about all that more in detail, when I talk about Season 1 of the Dream SMP. So, you’ll just have to go with me on this one for now.

Technoblade, by contrast, doesn’t really have much going on thematically in Season 1. He mostly exists as a sort-of utilitarian character – he is an accessory to make story beats happen. Like him executing Tubbo doesn’t open up any sort of thematic conflict involving him – on a character level it sets up antipathy between him and Tommy and it grants us some insight into how he operates with his violence speech – but on a larger-scale narrative level it really just shows how far Wilbur and Tommy have drifted apart in how they react to the event.

His biggest contribution is during the Season 1 finale, but even there he plays second fiddle to Wilbur. Not just because Wilbur does way more destruction with his explosion than Techno does with his Withers, but also because Wilbur had an emotional and thematic climax to his arc and by extension the entire storyline. Like Techno’s is a cool moment and very epic visual but in terms of thematic relevance, his Theseus-speech is really more set-up for Season 2.

And Season 1 is very unambiguous about L’Manberg being good and Tommy’s ideals ultimately being morally justified – I mean, they have a whole speech about it in the end and it was built-up throughout the entire Season – Techno is cast in a … less than sympathetic light. He is, if not a villain, then definitely an antagonist.

But with Season 2 the narrative is either uninterested in or not very clear on exploring Technoblade’s flaws.

Like ask yourselves: is Technoblade’s character ever consciously challenged by the narrative? Are his actions ultimately shown to not be in the right? Are his beliefs about government and power ever called into question? Are the negative consequences that his actions cause ever shown to be larger than the “good” he does?

I think what exemplifies this the most is how the Butcher Army event played out on December 16th. Now, during that event, the Butcher Army, which was comprised of Tubbo, Quackity, Fundy and Ranboo, managed to apprehend Technoblade, who at that point was living the quiet retirement life, and tried to have him publicly executed – without trial.

Now, smarter people than me have pointed out that the Butcher Army had a bevy of in-character reasons that can justify or explain their actions. And that’s definitely interesting, but as I said before, I want to get away from that and look into how the Butcher Army is treated on a narrative level. Because this is one of the few instances where the otherwise grey-loving Season 2 has some very clear narrative intent when it comes to morality.

The Butcher Army is very deliberately framed as almost cartoonishly corrupt and violent. They very forcefully investigate Philza, mock him and then put him under house arrest – and there’s just no remorse in the script even from normally sympathetic characters like Tubbo.

Compare and contrast with the Tommy-exile scene, which is also an act of moral ambiguity and is treated as such. And things get even worse once the Army arrives at Technoblade’s abode and attack him after he softly tells them that he has left that live behind him. They then proceed to take his horse hostage, mock him and execute him without fair trial – and I haven’t seen it but from live commentary I gathered that Techno really played up the whole softie-schtick before the Butcher Army arrived. I mean, before the big Technoblade vs Quackity fight, Quackity had whole villain monologue for Christ’s sake.

And even afterwards, the Butcher Army really plays up the corrupt angle with Tubbo proposing a festival as a guise to publicly execute someone. And again, I know that on an intradiegetic there’s nuances and it’s not really comparable to the Red Festival, but in combination with what the audience has seen up until that point and with how much it feeds into the already established themes of history repeating itself and becoming like your predecessors, it really does not paint a pretty picture of the Tubbo administration.

You can feel the heavy hand of the script on your shoulder, which is a feat seeing how – as discussed before – that’s not something that can be easily accomplished in this medium.

And that is what I mean when I say that Technoblade is not really challenged by the script and is in this case even emboldened by it. Because after this whole ordeal the thought of Technoblade taking revenge by destroying L’Manberg doesn’t seem like such an extreme response to the viewer – even though in my opinion, it is.

As of right now it is too early to say how the narrative will judge Technoblade’s actions in the future. Will they be framed as extreme but ultimately justified or perpetuating a cycle of ever-escalating vengeance? Will we ever see a government that’s not just at best misguided and at worst completely awful?

Ultimately, I believe and hope that Technoblade will be challenged by the narrative, mostly because a character that cannot, believably, be physically challenged, who doesn’t have any meaningful internal conflict about what he’s doing; and who does come out on the other side having everything he always believed in be proven completely in the right by the narrative, would be incredibly boring. Not just to watch but also to play as.

As it stands now, if the destruction Techno, Phil and Dream inflicted upon L’Manburg is framed as ultimately in the right, I would find it personally a distasteful message to send. I would ultimately say that the “correct” way to counter corruption in government is to completely obliterate the entire country. Like we’re not talking simply disbanding the government – that’s not what Doomsday was – we’re talking complete and utter annihilation. And that would be cynical and depressing. Like, call me a big softie, but even bothsidesing this argument would be bad.

Like, I’m not calling for Technoblade to be transformed into or treated a monster like Dream. But I personally feel like the narrative needs to acknowledge that the Doomsday was something that was taken way too far and that it ultimately brought more harm than good. And Technoblade needs to held accountable by someone who is not a cartoonishly corrupt government-official or who is in conflict with him anyway, like Tommy.

I thought Philza or Ranboo could do that but seeing how their storylines are progressing I don’t believe that will be the case. But who knows, maybe Captain Puffy will come through for us. We stan a Queen.

 Conclusion

So, yeah, I made this entire video just to air out my grievances with how one-sided the mode of analysis is in the fandom, because no person actually involved with the production of Dream SMP will ever see this.

But after everything I am cautiously optimistic, that content creator Technoblade knows what he’s doing. He has talked in the past about how his character is a bad guy and he loves his Greek myths. After all what’s more Greek myth than hybris being rewarded with punishment? [Technoblade never dies] That bodes well for him.

Also, this isn’t the video I promised at the end of the last one!

[thenamesblurrito]

ask dump the fourth

what can i say, i guess i get a lot of asks!! thanks for the attention, have some miscellaneous info

answered asks are collide from this ask meme, tm waspy dude’s Sky Striker, how much a mech can eat, tar taffy, Springload, Springer the secret John Deere tractor, dandelions, Soundwave, and nonhumanoid root modes

@confusedcriminal this has been in my inbox forever and i forgot about it halfway thru compiling an answer oops! but inspiration for SNAP taken from outside of transformers canon would, most obviously, be the entirely of magical girl anime. i legit scrolled through TVTropes for a long time doing research on stereotypical episodes, character types, etc just so i could really capture the aesthetic. i’m not basing it on any anime in particular, although the classic Sailor Moon and PMMM and even some Pretty Cure had a lot of good tropes for me to steal.

another one is sort of the nature of ~political discourse i see between kids online these days. SNAP revolves around four groups of kids working to better the world but violently disagreeing on how that should be done. it’s not an inspiration i started out with (especially because i avoid all sorts of the disk horse like the plague) but it became an apt comparison as i kept working on the story.

a solid character! it sounds like Sky Raider is a lot like Sky Striker with the addition of some confidence and security

(the post this is referring to)

it sort of depends on the person’s size, how worn/physically tired they are, and what materials their self repair is drawing from. a mech with a lot of dings and scrapes will have their self repair systems working harder and thus “run out” of what they’ve eaten quicker, whereas someone in perfect health who isn’t moving that much will only need general minor upkeep. as for how much they can eat at once, the fuel tanks and material stockpiles someone has will vary by their size and frame. a seeker, for instance, has large fuel reserves for their large energy demands because it’s stored in their wings, like real planes! their material stockpiles are smaller though because flightframes carrying around more weight in the form of eaten food is sort of counterintuitive. the average grounder and toolformer will have proportionally larger material stockpiles, flightframes and spacers and aquatics will have proportionally smaller, and beastformers will have somewhere in between, usually erring larger. eating too much for any one of them will result in lethargy and nausea, loss of appetite for a good while, perhaps physical pain from overstressed tanks, and if necessary purging/spitting up food. doing this over and over can damage their internal forges and repair systems, and lead to self repair tacking excess materials onto places that really don’t need them, like the flash of overmolded stuff, which can cause lumps, compromised welds, and even shrapnel knocking around in the internals. they don’t really have the equivalent of fat storage like organics, at best they get thick and malformed armor.

all that said, to answer your question! yes they could eat more to go longer between meals, as long as they don’t push it and eat more than they’re physically capable of holding. also, it’s pretty normal to get physical materials within liquid fuel. silted energon mentioned in the above link and “protein shakes” are a quick and easy way to get all their “food groups” in one form, and some mecha live exclusively off of these

lol that’s a great name already ghfofhjdfgs nice and simple, i can use that

oh this is really really good! backstory and everything! also gotta love a good FMAB reference *chefs kiss* i don’t know if i have a place for Springload in my current plotline, but this would fit perfectly as one of the accidental alternate timelines that Skywarp sometimes falls into, so i’m gonna tuck this in my back pocket for later. i am however hesitant to use Aboriginal culture as i am definitely not Aboriginal nor even Australian and don’t want to disrespect them. at the very least i’d have to ask some Aboriginal people, but i really don’t think it’s my place to use anything from the Dreamtime, especially without explicit permission

@oldboyjensenhinglemeier​ it took me so long to answer this because it’s so beautiful i wanted to save it forever. also no he’s not a tractor sadly but you’re right about the colors. the obvious solution is to make him a tractor in your own canon! (also what i’m hearing is Sputter’s new nickname for Springer is John Deere)

!!!! i never got part 1 to this but i already love this so much??? giant dandelions yes please. this is so good. sky weeds

yes he can, among a lot of other befuddling supersenses! the Lenses manifest mostly as augmented sight, which is already confusing enough to handle, but his powerset is more expansive. on his character sheet i describe it as “perception so acute he can predict what an opponent will do next”, and that bleeds into hearing as well, even hearing thoughts. he has a lot of work to do to figure out how to operate without a migraine, made more difficult by the way Rumble and Frenzy just refuse to cooperate

as for swimming aids, i think soundwave is one of the ones who can swim safely? i think? i talk about swimming in this dump here. most of the heroes can. his tentacles probably would make some decent swimming aids actually, although it’s unlikely to come up because there aren’t exactly many places to swim on Cybertron

(the post this is referring to)

something like that ;)

there’s an in-universe answer and an out-of-universe answer, and the out-of-universe answer is that i wanted to keep a set style and visual language for each character design to lend a thread of coherency between all of them, so i made the difficult decision to sacrifice nonhumanoid root modes